ASRock seems to be in a hurry to be out with the first socket AM3+ motherboard that supports AMD's next-generation "Zambezi" Fusion Black processors, and so again put its creativity to use. The company designing a new motherboard based on the AMD 890FX + SB850 chipset instead, called the ASRock 890FX Deluxe5. The selling point with this board is the ability to have an AM3+ as early as possible, with capability to accommodate AM3+ processors as they come. For now, ASRock's idea in the public domain is only in the form of a layout drawing.

The typically-sized ATX motherboard from ASRock makes use of AMD's 890FX + SB850 chipset. The CPU socket is compatible with existing socket AM3 Phenom II and Athlon II processors, and future Fusion Black processors. This isn't particularly an advantage, because every AM3+ motherboard in the future based on 990FX will retain support for AM3 processors. On the other hand, 990FX motherboards could also embrace UEFI, something this board seems to lack prima facie.

Expansion includes three PCI-Express 2.0 x16, and two each of PCI-E x1 and legacy PCI. Storage is care of six SATA 6 Gb/s ports from the southbridge, two SATA unknown ports and an IDE connector from a third-party controller. Connectivity includes 8-channel HD audio with optical and coaxial SPDIF connectivity, six USB 3.0 ports (two by header), a number of USB 2.0 ports, gigabit Ethernet, eSATA, and FireWire. There's no information on when exactly ASRock will introduce this board, but it better be soon, lest it loses edge over 990FX boards.

Nice... I hope this drives innovation forward for other AM3+ processors. This fall is going to be very exciting with what I predict will be a bonanza of competition and price-drops on key components like SSDs.